Kansas beats N.C. State 60-57

It wasn’t as easy as they would have liked it, but who said it would be easy to defeat Mark Gottfried’s squad? N.C. State’s, ever underrated, NCAA Tournament run has finally come to an end after a 60-57 loss at the hands of Bill Self and No. 2 seeded Kansas. The No. 11 seeded Wolfpack should be proud of themselves for coming this far and giving the Jayhawks a run for their money in the Elite Eight.

1. Scott Wood had a poor 2-10 performance for the Wolfpack, but future first-rounder C.J. Leslie made up for it with a team-high 18 points. Four N.C. State players, including Wood, went into double digits.

2. One player who almost always has an interesting stat line is Jeff Withey, and the same can be said about everyone on Kansas’s big three. Withey finished with ten blocks, and Kansas had just one block from someone other than Withey. The star center had just five rebounds, but Thomas Robinson more than made up for that with 15 boards to offset his 7-17 game complete with four turnovers and a 4-9 performance from the charity stripe. In the end, Robinson tied Leslie with a game-high 18 points.

3. Tyshawn Taylor is one of those guards who can impact a game even when his shooting falters, and a 2-14 game (0-6 from downtown) is definitely not a shooting line to be proud of. Always one to turn it over, Taylor also gifted the Wolfpack with five possessions. However, he corralled ten rebounds (incredible for a PG), dished five dimes, and he had three thefts to chip in defensively.

4. The difference in this game was definitely shooting, because both teams’ rebounding totals, turnover rates, and free throws were in-line. N.C. State went just 28.4% from the floor, and this game was always going to be a scrappy one with N.C. State always preferring to steal an ugly game against a favored squad. It didn’t work out this time, even though Kansas ended up shooting 55% from the free throw line and missed those easy points.

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